Journal Sentinel editors join hackdom hall of fame

It's amazing, when you stop to think about it.

A confused Annette Ziegler supporter gets a robocall from the Linda Clifford campaign touting a recent Journal Sentinel endorsement. The baffled Ziegler fan drops the call without listening the entire thing -- including, you know, the disclosure of who made the call (and doesn't everybody who watches TV know disclosures come at the end of campaign messages?) -- and calls the Journal Sentinel to complain.

Instead of questioning whether the complainer is competent to vote, the JS puts out web stories saying Clifford's calls are "confusing" voters, seeks a cease and desist order against the campaign and splashes the story on the front of the Metro section.

Intoned JS editor Marty Kaiser:

"We understand the First Amendment right of free speech," Editor Martin Kaiser said. "However, the Journal Sentinel cannot stand by while its readers are confused and misled by political telephone calls that undermine the newspaper's integrity and independence.

"Any calls that mention the newspaper's editorial page endorsement should let callers know immediately and clearly that the calls are coming from the political campaign and not from the newspaper." (Umm, is that the law, Marty? Please advise. -- Brawler)

Xoff and the lesser half of Pundit Nation make the point that these shenanigans here again demonstrate that the JS's editors are in the bag for the rightwing in Wisconsin and is more than willing to abuse their positions and public trust to advance that agenda.

From Xoff:

The news operation is firmly in the grip of Managing Editor George Stanley, a suburban right-winger who has full control of page one, the Metro section and the rest of the news hole. He has the final word on what gets covered and where the stories are displayed.

Bruce Murphy, fortuitously, published an analysis making that same point while looking at the JS's relentlessly hostile coverage of Jim Doyle.

The Brawler agrees with their analyses. Moreover, he believes that the dynamic duo have earned a place of honor among Milwaukee journalistic charlatans who've abused their position to advance a political agenda.

This abuse of power puts them in truly rarefied company. I mean, everyone knows Sykes and McBride and Wagner and McIlheran are rightwing tools. But the public expects more from people who are supposed to guard the public trust.

So guys, take a seat next to John Sentinel. Who was John Sentinel? During the Allis Chalmers strike in 1946 one John Sentinel penned front-page stories for the Milwaukee Sentinel denouncing the strikers as tools of Stalin. "In short daily articles, the Sentinel will focus the light of publicity on each detail of the Communist menace here at home so that the thinking power of intelligent reader audience will be bourght to bear on the situation every day."

Now, without a doubt, Reds occupied leadership positions within UAW Local 248 (Reuther later purged it). But to suggest that the AC workers who voted to go out on strike -- and the vast majority of the 11,000 workers did vote to walk -- not over real grievances but because they were dupes of Stalinists beggars belief.

Oh, yeah, John Sentinel is believed to have been an Allis Chalmers researcher and speechwriter. Which might explain why he had a pseudonym. Marty: Frank Taylor, publisher of the Sentinel at the time, will be joining you soon. You gotta be pumped about that!

Lads, the guys sitting on the other side of you are none other than Will Conrad and Harry J. Grant, chief editorial writer and publisher, respectively, of the Milwaukee Journal during the 1948 Milwaukee mayoral election. That race pitted socialist Frank Zeidler against Henry Reuss.

From Robert Wells' "The Milwaukee Journal: An Informal Chronicle of its first 100 years (1882-1982)":

Unlike Carl Zeidler (the Republican mayor of Milwaukee who died during WW II, back when politicians actually enlisted to serve their country -- Brawler), Frank was a socialist. Conrad feared that if he won there would be a revival of Socialism as a major force in Milwaukee politics. Actually, the Milwaukee party was now a small remnant and Zeidler's membership was more of a liability than an asset. But Conrad felt that Milwaukee had had enough of Socialist mayors and urged that The Journal support Reuss. Grant, skeptical at first, was persuaded.

"If you back this guy," he said, "elect him." (Brawler's bold.)

(Managing editor Wallace) Lomoe was told that whenever the names of the candidates appeared, Reuss must be mentioned first, with the qualifying description of "nonpartisan." After Zeidler's name must come the phrase, "a Socialist."

"As long as I'm managing editor, I'll never issue an order like that," Lomoe said.

"Then you're no longer managing editor," he was told.

Now, none of this is to say that Clifford would have won had the Milwaukee Sentinel Journal not gone apoplectic based on the concerns of a purportedly confused Annette Ziegler voter.

It's only to say that Marty and George have earned a very special place in the annals of journalistic hackdom.

Well done!

UPDATE: Some rejiggering to be inclusive of Marty and George.

Comments

[Anon]

In the days when the Journal consistently was ranked by its peers as a good newspaper -- the rule was no such political news coverage for several days before an election. That certainly made for filling the Friday paper, before the rule went in place for the weekend through election Tuesday.

That Stanley hold Lamoe's title is a travesty. Stanley doesn't just manage the newsroom as managing editor; he manages the news to (and past) the point of manipulating it. Call him the manipulating editor and let Lamoe rest in peace.